Different Types of Mobile Food Vehicles

Food trucks

Food trucks are the preferred choice of most vendors in the mobile food industry because of their range in sizes and their mobility. By definition, a food truck is a licensed, motorized vehicle or mobile food unit that’s used for selling food items to the general public. This definition is quite vague, but that may be because the definition of a food truck varies from city to city.

In some cities, you may find that a food truck is a set of heating units sitting in the back of a pickup truck. In other areas, a food truck is a mobile kitchen built into a truck the size of a standard delivery truck (this definition has become the most common one since the surge in the mobile food industry in 2008).

These trucks can range in length from 14 feet all the way up to 30 feet. The kitchens in these trucks are fully functioning kitchens that are regulated just as any other commercial kitchen, with additional inspection requirements to make sure all this equipment is safe to travel with in between uses.

The pros of using a food truck over a cart or trailer are that a truck is far more mobile and can use parking spaces designated for one or two cars. Food carts are typically dropped off and parked in a single location and, like trailers, require a secondary vehicle to tow them.

The kitchens you can have installed in food trucks are nearly the size of those in some trailers, so using a truck instead of a cart also gives you more space.